This talk is part of a broader study into the history, emergence, and modern debates around the rule of law through images. The study of the cultural representation of law through art throws new light on the emergence and evolution of the rule of law, and on key issues and tensions within it.

Speaker

Professor Desmond Manderson is an international leader in interdisciplinary scholarship in law and the humanities. He is the author of several books including From Mr Sin to Mr Big (1993); Songs Without Music: Aesthetic dimensions of law and justice (2000); Proximity, Levinas, and the Soul of Law (2006); and Kangaroo Courts and the Rule of Law—The legacy of modernism (2012). Throughout this work Manderson has articulated a vision in which law's connection to the humanities is critical to its functioning, its justice, and its social relevance. After ten years at McGill University in Montreal, where he held the Canada Research Chair in Law and Discourse, and was founding Director of the Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, in 2012 he returned to Australia to take up a Future Fellowship in the ANU College of Law and the Research School of Humanities and Arts.

2013 Keywords schedule

Des Manderson, 4 March, Blind Justice
Kate Flaherty, 17 June, Shakespeare
Rosanne Kennedy, 19 August, Trauma: a Keyword in Contemporary Culture
Jon Mee, 23 September, Talking Books: Literature's Conversable World 1760-1830